


When It All Falls

by theDeadTree



Series: Hawke Stories [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theDeadTree/pseuds/theDeadTree
Summary: That's what happens when you try to change things; things change. You can't always control how. Hawke flees Kirkwall.





	1. Chapter 1

Meredith screamed. She fell to her knees and clutched her head and writhed and screamed; a noise so loud and so terrible that despite the fact that she was right in front of me, despite the fact that I was watching it all happen, I had difficulty believing it could possibly come from a human being. She screamed and writhed and clawed at her face; as the seconds dragged by, her movements slowed and her skin grew strangely discoloured as the ominous red mist from her shattered blade enveloped her.

I staggered back, horrified as eventually, she grew still, and the noise – oh sweet Maker, the _noise_ – finally faded into an eerie silence.

And for such a long time, that’s all there was. Silence. Silence as the templars looked at each other, terrified and confused. Silence as I looked on in horror at what Meredith had ultimately become. Silence in the Gallows as across the harbour, fires raged and yet more innocent people died.

All of that, all that carnage, all that fighting, all that death, and it was just, over.

Just like that.

I’d won.

Somehow, this doesn’t feel like winning.

Cautiously, one of the templars began to approach. She pushed me roughly out of the way and knelt down in front of the smoking form of the Knight-Commander, encased in lyrium, frozen in place, fused to the flagstone. Slowly, I stepped back, not quite able to register anything that had just happened. Today didn’t feel real. It certainly didn’t make sense – but what in the past _seven years_ has made any kind of sense?

The templars seemed to gather around Meredith, none of them taking much notice of me as I continued to move backwards, almost unthinkingly, right until I felt my back hit Fenris’ chest. I whirled around to find him standing there, watching me closely, as if he was afraid I’d fall over any second. I suppose it was a rational fear for him to have – I was a complete wreck. Whatever the red lyrium had done to Meredith, whatever unholy powers it granted her, it had almost been too much for me to handle and evidently, Fenris knew it.

But I wasn’t dead. In spite of it all, I was still here, still alive. And so was he.

So there’s that, I guess. Congratulations, Garrett. The city is destroyed, hundreds of innocent people are dead, you murdered your friend who turned out to be a damn terrorist, and you may have started a fucking war over the welfare of a few dozen mages, but at least you and the elf are still alive.

Small victories.

Cullen, the Knight-Captain, glanced over to me, his face twisted into a mix of relief, fear, and confusion. Slowly, he began to make his way over to me, and for a moment, he looked as though he was going to march over and arrest me on the spot, but he hesitated and paused mid-step. Immediately, I tensed, my hand flying to my staff as magic sparked and crackled to life in the air around me.

For a moment, one of the longest moments of my life, I stood there, surrounded by templars, my hand still inching ever closer to my staff. I was exhausted, my chest heaving as I struggled desperately for air and blood trickled down my face and seeped through my armour from all the countless wounds I’d manage to get from the seemingly never ending gauntlet of people who’ve wanted to kill me this evening. I don’t know what I planned to do, exactly. Nothing about the situation seemed real.

But then, a small, faint hint of a smile pulled at Cullen’s lips and he nodded, before turning back to the crowd of shocked, confused, and utterly horrified templars. And for what felt like an eternity, I just gaped at his retreating back, unable to really understand any of what had just happened.

Did he just…tell me to go? To run, to get out of the city before what’s left crumbles? Is he purposely giving me enough time to vanish into the wilderness before crowds of people appear, all screaming for my head for daring to protect the mages?

I glanced at the huge portcullis, and the harbour as well as the burning remains of the city beyond it. It had all been so calm this morning. Or, well, not _calm,_ but as quiet Kirkwall ever was since I stepped off the boat here seven years ago. I don’t know what the Knight-Captain is playing at, but if he’s letting me leave, I’m going to leave. Now. And not look back.

I smiled gingerly at Fenris and gently brushed a lock of hair out of his face before pulling away and heading for the exit. Immediately, he followed, quickly joined by Isabela, Aveline, Merrill, Sebastian, Varric and finally Carver. Quickly, quietly, we all shuffled out of the main courtyard, heading straight for the exit.

I don’t know where to go, I realised as I passed under the portcullis. Somewhere else in the Free Marches? Back to Ferelden? Maybe I could go north, up to Antiva, or Rivain, maybe even Tevinter or the Anderfels.

Edgily, I glanced back at Fenris, who was walking beside me, staring forwards, his head held high with a sense of purpose I couldn’t understand how he still had. Could I do that to him? Drag him back to the nation he’d spent so much time and effort running from? Am I even within my _right_ to ask that of him?

Of course I can’t do that. _Idiot._ It’s bad enough I dragged him into this insanity at all. So, no. Not north. North would be a bad idea. I just need to get out of Kirkwall. Just like I needed to get out of Lothering, when the darkspawn horde marched upon it all those years ago. Back then, I’d told myself, told everyone that we shouldn’t run for our lives again unless we really had to. Back then, I never thought anything short of another Blight could force me through that again.

And yet, here I am. Running. I suppose some things don’t change. Some things _never_ change.

The Gallows was a mess – debris strewn everywhere, walls destroyed by violent blasts of magic; most of them _mine._ Blood stained the ground, and the destroyed, bloodied, mangled corpses of both mages and templars alike littered the place. Across the harbour, I could see the orange glow of the fires that raged throughout the city, the huge clouds of smoke that billowed into the night sky.

All that time struggling desperately to remain neutral, to not get involved, and my own damn conscience ruins it for me. All for the lives of a few dozen mages. And what did I achieve, in the end? For all his bravado and harping on about justice for mages, what did Anders actually _achieve?_ A destroyed Chantry. Hundreds of innocent people dead. Maybe he even managed to spark the war he wanted.

I snorted derisively at the thought.

What kind of insane bastard actually _wants_ to force the world into a war? What kind of abominable _idiot_ lets himself get manipulated into helping with such a scheme? I’m too trusting for my own good. So damned determined to see the best in everyone like my father always told me that it blinds me to reality. How many times do I have to get stabbed in the back before I realise that, maybe, the problem isn’t with people, but with me?

Thank you, Father, for setting me up to be manipulated by anyone and everyone I’ve ever met.

I can’t believe this is happening.

I can’t believe this is real.

Anders is not a martyr. I won’t let that happen. I can’t. I’m not going to let his name become a rallying call for mages, even if that means it has to be mine instead. Even if that means I end up becoming everything he wanted me to be, everything I’ve been trying to avoid for the past six years. Whatever they decide to say about me from now on, at least I never advocated for a massacre. Killed a bunch of people, sure, so many people I’ve long since lost count, but never anyone innocent. Bandits, gangs, mercenaries, blood mages, abominations, corrupt templars; people so far off the deep end they barely give a second thought to the atrocities they’re committing. Never anyone who didn’t attack me first. Never anyone who didn’t deserve it.

Oh yeah, Garrett. You just killed the First Enchanter, the Knight-Commander, and one of your closest friends. You stood at the forefront of the carnage and fought to allow people who’d demonstrated that they’re more than capable of committing genocide with very little effort to be let loose into the world. You’re an absolute paragon of righteousness.

It’s a dream.

Maker, tell me it’s a dream.

Tell me it isn’t _real._

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what’s going to happen.

Maker, forgive me for this.

There was nothing left to say. Nothing left to do.

I ran.

And Kirkwall burned.


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re quiet,” Fenris observed as he leaned on the railing of the ship beside me, watching me a little apprehensively.

I glanced at him, before returning my gaze to the tumultuous sea that surrounded us, rocking the ship back and forth just gently – or at least, what Isabela called gently. I was about ready to throw up. Healing magic is useful for so many things, but it does nothing for sea sickness. I know. I’ve tried.

The last time I crossed the Waking Sea, I was locked in the hold with my family and countless other refugees trying to outrun the Blight. It seems like forever ago. A lifetime ago. Sometimes I think about the person I was then and I wonder how I ever managed to become this. I guess I just made too many bad decisions. Became friends with all the wrong people.

It seems that no matter what happens, we always end up running for our lives. Seems that no matter where I go, there’s always something to run _from,_ whether it’s templars, the Chantry, darkspawn, or some other horror.

It never ends.

“Garrett.”

My head snapped up at the call of my name, glancing up to find a pair of green eyes staring back at me, growing increasingly concerned. Honestly, I can’t imagine why. It’s not like Kirkwall quite literally blew up and fighting filled the streets as rubble landed across the city, destroying buildings and killing many more people than just those who had been in the Chantry, or anything…

Oh, wait. That’s exactly what happened.

Dammit. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I don’t even really know what I’ve done. I don’t know what this is going to mean, for me, for Kirkwall, for mages, for templars, for anyone.

“Did I do the right thing?”

He sighed quietly. “You know what I think.”

He was right about that; I did know what he thought about it. He’d been very vocal in his opinions regarding the entire mess between mages and templars since we first met, six years ago now. I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit that, just for a moment, I honestly wasn’t sure if he’d stay. That just for a moment, I was terrified that I’d end up being forced to fight him too.

But he didn’t.

For once, he actually stayed.

“But you stood with me,” I pointed out.

His eyes narrowed slightly, like I was accusing him. “Of course I did.”

I groaned and rolled my shoulders back, rubbing the back of my neck and still trying to process everything that had happened.

Slowly, almost unwillingly, I glanced back up at the elf next to me, not sure what to think. Not quite sure what to make of him. We’d been over this who even knows how many times now; trying to work out the finer points of our something of a flailing attempt at a relationship, and somehow nothing had changed. I still have no idea how to navigate the situation, and it’s not like _Fenris_ knows the first thing about how to do this.

Perhaps that’s unfair on him. But he’s yet to prove me wrong.

For almost the entire time I’ve known him, he’s been running, hiding, and making sure to kill absolutely anyone and everyone who would come chasing after him. I’d been helping him, after all. I’d been there for six years, slowly but surely helping him murder his way to freedom. He only just manages to kill the man responsible for it all, only just manages to finally cut those last ties to his life as a slave, and now he’s been forced back into the life of a fugitive once again. And it’s my fault.

“Just when you thought you were done running,” I murmured, a small, sad smile tugging at my lips. “Some asshole Fereldan apostate had to go and do this to you.”

He barely even reacted. “It’s done. I made my choice.”

“Hopefully you don’t regret it.”

“Not all of it.”

I laughed bitterly. “See if you still feel that way when the Divine sends an Exalted March after us.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that. In his place, I can’t say I would’ve, either. It wasn’t a particularly fun thing to consider – fleeing from the wrath of the Divine. It was quite possibly the absolute _last_ thing my parents wanted for me; exactly the kind of thing they’d been so desperate to avoid. Although I doubt they ever thought I’d manage to screw up quite this badly.

I don’t want to think about it. I can’t.

“So,” I mumbled after what felt like an eternity.

He shifted, just enough to watch me in his peripheral vision and said nothing.

“Still think mages are a threat?”

“They _are_ a threat,” he replied tersely. “To themselves and everyone around them. That is never going to change. Just look at what the abomination achieved.”

“Not every mage in the world is Anders,” I pointed out. “I mean, _I’m_ not.”

I think.

I _hope._

“Not every mage in the world is _you,_ either,” he argued. “It was a mistake to fight Meredith.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re _kidding,_ right? Are we just going to ignore that part when she went completely batshit insane and tried to kill us? Where’s the concern about what she did? Where was the outrage for _her_ lack of control?”

He didn’t say anything. I sighed and shook my head, looking back over the waves.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. We keep having this argument and I- …I don’t even know anymore. But Meredith’s actions were reprehensible. I couldn’t let her do that. I’d hate myself.”

“So you started a war.”

His tone was short, sharp, accusing. Like I haven’t berated myself for everything enough already. Like I need one more disapproving voice telling me that everything I did, every choice I made, was wrong. I let it happen. Unknowingly or not, I helped Anders carry out his attack. It’s my fault. All of it is entirely my fault, I know that. I just wish someone out here would tell me that it isn’t. I just wish someone would shake me awake from this nightmare.

But, no.

Going on the run as a fugitive apostate in the wake of turning around and attacking the templars and starting a fucking war because I let myself get manipulated by an abomination while the Knight-Commander was driven insane by something _I_ found in the Deep Roads.

That’s my reality.

Is there _any_ aspect of this that isn’t somehow my fault?

“Not my proudest moment, I’ll admit,” I conceded quietly, before groaning and resting my head on the railing. “If he hadn’t- …if I hadn’t _helped-_ …Maker, this is screwed up. This is _so_ screwed up.”

He rolled his shoulders back and looked up at the sky. “You weren’t responsible. The one who is died for it. That’s what matters.”

“But I-”

“You didn’t _know,”_ he told me firmly.

 _“How_ does that make it _better?”_ I demanded, gesturing furiously in the vague direction of the city we’d long since left behind. “What does that _change?_ Ugh. That damned ogre should’ve killed me, not Beth.”

“Garrett-”

“Everyone would’ve been better off if I’d never come to Kirkwall,” I muttered, inconsolable.

“I wouldn’t.”

My head snapped up at his small confession, eyebrows raised with shock and surprise. Fenris didn’t look at me, just stared adamantly out at the ocean, looking distant. For so long, there was nothing but silence as I stared at him in shock and he refused to meet my eye. I don’t know why I was so taken aback – it wasn’t the first time Fenris had displayed a surprising capacity for sappy romance. Somehow it still surprises me.

“My life is better for having met you, Garrett Hawke,” he admitted quietly, his lip curling slightly like it caused him pain to say it. “Your bad decisions and awful judge of character isn’t going to change that.”

And there goes the warm fuzzy feelings.

I blinked several times. “What are you talking about? I have an _excellent_ judge of character.”

“Anders.”

He does have me there.

“…okay. Okay, fine. Maybe my judge of character could be better.”

“Try to avoid abominations in the future.”

“You know; I don’t think I recall ever inviting you to snark at me.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t deserve it,” he shot back at me without missing a beat.

“I thought you _just said_ it wasn’t my fault?”

“The chantry explosion wasn’t your fault. Everything that happened afterwards…” he trailed off into silence, letting me fill in the rest of his sentence.

Everything that happened afterwards was my decision. Everything that happened afterwards I actively participated in. Everything that happened afterwards was indeed my fault.

I nodded slowly. “Ah. You’re mad at me for defending the mages.”

“I’m _mad_ at you for starting a _war,”_ he corrected.

“Meredith declared the Right of Annulment!”

“And you resisted,” he pointed out.

“Sweet Andraste, are you going to hold this over me _forever?”_

“You _did_ start a war.”

“And who’s to say it wouldn’t have started anyway?” I argued. “That’s what Anders _wanted,_ isn’t it? To provoke Meredith into declaring the Right of Annulment? Force a massacre, so the rest of the Circles would be outraged?”

It all seems so obvious now.

Why, oh _why_ did I fail to see this sooner?

Anders killed hundreds of innocent people to start a war. Ultimately, that’s all he cared about. Starting a war. In the end, nothing else mattered, not even the lives of the mages he was trying to champion. He spent all that time snarling at Merrill for trusting demons, only to fall to one himself.

I killed my friend.

No getting around that.

He destroyed the chantry and I murdered him for it.

I don’t know what I hate more – what he did, what _I_ did in retaliation, or the fact that despite it all, despite everything, despite the fact that he was my friend, that I wanted to help, I can’t bring myself to regret it.

Oh, I _hate_ myself for it, sure. I’ve no doubt that the memory will haunt me for the rest of my life. But if I could go back, do it all again, I know I’d make the same decision. Hundreds of innocent people died in that explosion. Was I supposed to condone that? Was I supposed to forgive him, because he was my friend? Because we were both mages, both apostates? I have a lot of regrets; but killing Anders just isn’t one of them.

I hate what happened to him. I hate the fact that we were friends for six years and somehow I failed to see it. I should’ve seen it. I should’ve stopped it. I should’ve confronted him sooner. I shouldn’t have backed down when I finally did. I shouldn’t have tried to be understanding. Some things are exactly what you think they are. Some things will always live up to the stereotype.

You can’t save everyone.

Sometimes, you can’t save _anyone._

Put that on the list of life lessons my father failed to teach me before he died.

“Can we talk about something else?” I finally asked in a strangled voice. “Anything. _Please.”_

Fenris, in a spectacularly awkward fashion, immediately looked back out at the rolling waves of the Waking Sea, raking a hand through his hair and trying very hard not to meet my gaze.

“Uh, nice weather?”

I groaned loudly. “You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

“You did say anything.”

“The _weather,_ Fen? Really? That’s the _best_ you can do?”

He glanced away and said nothing more. Apparently, it really was the best he could do.

We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence as we both wrestled with the situation. I should be used to silences by now – it’s not like he’s ever been an overly talkative person. Fenris has no qualms with silence. Problem is, I’m chatty and insecure so there’s possibly nothing I hate more.

Surprisingly, though, it was Fenris who ended up speaking first.

“Where are we going, Garrett?”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “Right now? South.”

“And what then?”

 _“Then,_ I’ll work something out,” I sighed. “Who knows? We could go to Orlais.”

“Because that went _so_ well the first time.”

“Are you _still_ brooding over what Tallis said about your Qunlat?”

_“Garrett.”_

“Ugh, fine. Ferelden, then. I could show you around Lothering.”

What’s left of it.

His eyes narrowed. “Wasn’t it destroyed in the Blight?”

“Alright, I’ll show you around the desolate wasteland that _used_ to be Lothering,” I amended, only for my smile to fade as I actually thought about what I was saying. “I’ll…think of something.”


End file.
